


Stuck In An Hourglass

by XtaticPearl



Series: Pearl's Tony-centric Angst Week Creations [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-23 00:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8307070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XtaticPearl/pseuds/XtaticPearl
Summary: He was never enough. He was the best creation of his father. He was the most needed protector of the world. But he wasn’t enough.He lived on, because it was okay. He still had blood to give.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KiernaSerea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiernaSerea/gifts).



> This is part of my Angst Week resolution that began thanks to Kierna's instigation and constant reminder of me being angsty. One week. One week of madness.  
> OH GOD.

Tony was born in the eye of a storm, with the silent mansion of anxious souls praying for him. He had everyone when he came into this world, kicking and screaming right from the start. A family, an extended family, and an entire future waiting for him to save it.

Tony Stark died for the first time though, in his father’s workshop. Between a shattered circuit and a declaration that he would never be as important as a dead hero, a five year old boy felt the first part of his soul shrivel and die out, as his eyes began clearing of their rosy glasses. It was the day he saw his father as Howard Stark and not Dad. It was the beginning in so many ways - a beginning of the end.

He was reborn in a stinking bathroom of a MIT dorm, when the same eyes fell on a boy of dark eyes and bright heart. With hands that stayed calm and feet that were on the ground, the boy lifted him from the hell he had burrowed himself into. He couldn’t pull Tony out completely, nobody could have with a decade worth of anger, disappointment, weariness and despair running through his blood. But the boy tried and he would go on to try for the rest of their lives. The boy was the first one to prefer his name to his surname. Tony made the boy’s surname into a name of its own for that honor. Tony was reborn when Rhodey came into his life.

He died again when he went away from Rhodey, quite literally in a humvee. He died for ninety one days, every day a groundhog day of morbid realization. Briefly, between knowing that his heart would never be whole again and realizing that his hands would never be clean of blood again, Tony believed he lived. For minutes, for seconds, for moments with Yinsen. 

“How are you feeling today, Mr. Stark?” Yinsen would ask every Friday.

“Still alive, buddy,” Tony would lie every week, trying to convince his brain of his tongue’s words.

He was brought back to life with Yinsen’s death, another splash of innocent blood on his ever stained hands. He became Iron Man, a borrowed name for a borrowed life, but his real name of Merchant of Death never left. He let himself digest that even as he fell into Rhodey’s arms and felt the life seep back in.

Death knocked again when Tony understood that home was just a word and family was just an illusion, as he lay prone on a sofa staring into the eyes of the man who had almost been a father and was almost being his murderer. Maybe he never recovered from that. Maybe that day the part of Tony that died forgot its way back to him. Maybe that was the day he first saw the sign of how the Fates had designed his life- to be loved by tongues and killed by hearts.

Still, he lived. In halved, in pieces, in a mess, but he lived.

Because his heart wouldn’t let him die yet.

Till it too decided to desert him.

Surrounded by too much intelligence, too less time and not enough life to live, he reverted to that lost boy who would break things to forget his own broken self. Who would give his most precious toys to his most precious people in the pretext of arrogance, so that they never gave it back to him. The boy who was the light but saw only darkness.

He lived through that too though, because there was more to give. More to be. More to tear open his heart and let his blood be ink for others to write destinies. He lived. In tatters, in masks, in a maze, but he lived.

Because he was Iron Man.

Till it was decided that he and the name were not the same. The name was welcomed, while he was rejected. He didn’t know if he died or relived the death of a five year old in a workshop that day. 

He was never enough. He was the best creation of his father. He was the most needed protector of the world. But he wasn’t enough.

He lived on, because it was okay. He still had blood to give.

He died again in a darkness beyond the Earth. Watching his hands having sent death away from his people, he died on his way back to them. His heart, the ever beating menace, took a break for those few precious seconds and for once Tony thought that this was it. He would finally be free of the see-saw between life and death. There would finally be quiet.

Of course, there wasn’t. He was reborn with a roar and he woke up to a world where he had become part of a team. A team who would go on to become the family he had long renounced. 

Tony didn’t know what to do with that realization but he accepted it nonetheless. He would live then, for them, with them, with the team and Rhodey and Pepper, his constant.

He forgot that the only constant in life was change, and change came with a missile to his home and a virus to Pepper’s body. Tony could see his life fail when he let Pepper down, quite literally. And with her fall, he fell too, his soul shattering again, sending another broken piece to the winds.  He was the man who could fly, who could save New York. But he couldn’t save Pepper.

Thankfully, Pepper was better than him, and saved them both. Pepper gave him back his life and Tony gave her a piece of his heart, his metal-tainted heart for that. 

“Stay with me. Choose me” Pepper whispered against his lips at night, his shrapnel around her neck.

“Promise” he whispered back.

Tony had always known that he was a liar and Pepper found that too when he died again, but this time killed an entire country with himself. With Ultron, Tony felt himself die in pieces, every development taking a pound of flesh from his soul. When JARVIS was killed, Tony died. When Wanda manipulated Bruce into becoming a monster, Tony died. When his own hands created the monster he thought he would protect the world from, Tony died. When he was blamed, Tony died. When he couldn’t save, Tony died.

When he was forgiven, Tony died, because no forgiveness could repair the damage he believed he had done. And no forgiveness would make him hate himself less. No forgiveness of the world would make him forgive himself.

He believed he could live again when he found the Accords. He believed he could finally do what was right again. He could finally be worthy of the borrowed life he had taken from Yinsen. He was sure he could live again, he could breathe again.

Till he couldn’t. Till he was broken, physically, mentally and emotionally, till there was nothing left but anger and despair, nothing left but darkness for the man of light. He died in a cold Siberian bunker, his father’s shield in font of him and his father’s hero walking away from him.

He had to get up again though, because he had Rhodey to go back to. Rhodey, the boy who had first saved him, the man who had always loved him as a kin. He knew he was dead inside but for Rhodey, he breathed and he lived.

And when time came, when the world was under attack again, when there was no hope for life and when Rhodey could not save himself, Tony lived harder.

He lived hardest and fastest in those few seconds that it took to come between Thanos and Rhodey, between certain death and uncertain life. In those few seconds, Tony Stark was back in the eye of the storm, kicking and screaming to stay alive. Just for a few seconds, just for a few more seconds.

He died for the umpteenth time to the roar of anger and with a smile of triumph. Thankfully, he didn’t hear noise after that. That was the day he welcomed silence and left to live with it.

Tony Stark lived and died in a closed hourglass, ever shifting, ever flowing and ever trapped in his own time. But when he died, he lived in free space, in free air, in free time.

And left Rhodey to live his borrowed life in a new hourglass

**Author's Note:**

> FEEDBACK PLEASE :D


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